Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has completed all 24 investigations in the Adani-Hindenburg case and is set to submit its final report soon.
Earlier the market regulator had informed the Supreme Court that it had completed 22 of the 24 investigations. One of the two remaining investigations related to trading pre and post-Hindenburg report was to ascertain whether some entities’ short positions were unusual when the report was released. In this regards, SEBI has issued a show-cause notice to Hindenburg Research.
SEBI’s investigation found that the disclaimer by the short seller on holding positions in the Adani group stock “only through non-Indian traded securities was misleading since it concealed the complete extent of its financial interest in companies which were the subject of its research report due to Hindenburg’s direct stake in profits from positions taken by the FPI in the future of AEL on the Indian stock exchange.” Hindenburg has dismissed SEBI’s findings as “nonsense”.
The second pending investigation was related to an allegation of violation of minimum public shareholding by Adani group companies listed on the bourses. SEBI investigated six listed Adani group entities and found that four companies, including Adani Power and Adani Energy, had violated the public shareholding norms by categorising some of the promoter held shares as public. Adani group companies have denied the findings of the SEBI investigations as per disclosures made by the companies to the stock exchanges.
While the market regulator is yet to issue its final order in the matter, determination of whether there has been a violation or not in all 24 investigations related to the allegations made in the Hindenburg report.
Market experts said that SEBI should release its findings quickly after completing the due process of hearing all parties. “There is a perception that SEBI is not doing enough in the Adani case. Now we have a new set of allegations from the US investigating agencies which needs to be investigated as well,” said a proxy advisory firm.